The Archive's Lights (title WiP)
by sylcla29
Summary: Kaira Mercia is desperate to find a piece of truth in the work she dedicated her life to. Her friends and family conduct their searches for her as Kaira leaves her studies under the Taren Empire's religious leader, who is in turn enlisting help in tracking down and studying their god's original writings alongside the Markaris Empire's Marshal as they seek their own answers.
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer: the Artefacts' names, and any quotes with a **bold source** , are credited to Spore. This is pretty much the only tie directly to the game, but this is part of Project Tesseract, so it needs to be said. :3_  
 _Thank you so much to NJKilleen and VeeVee for being so patient and so damn awesome, and to Goldie for the death threats that motivated me to finally put this draft up already._

 _oOoOo_

'the core's colours move across Aeron, looking back' -cont.  
from Soletris' Archives of Artefacts, Book 1, Part 3.  
First mention of such 'colours' in the archives; most connections here tenuous at best. Second mention Bk. 3, Pt. 7.

All life betrays itself and dies. To attempt to preserve one's life is pointless. Loyalty must be given to something greater than a single life.  
 **-Stone of Force, Vol. 4**

Prologue

The capital had since faded to a blur of light unknown miles away. Sienne pretended she could pick out the Sanctorium's silhouette, black against the last sunlight and the distant glow of the city. One of her students would be dead there by now. The other was probably reading. She reached into her coat, and the Marshal caught her wrist before she could pull out a screen to check the time.  
"It was right, Sienne," he said. Her shoulders dropped, and Sienne pushed the screen back into a pocket, pulling her cloak tighter over her shoulders. Ferrilyn watched her. "You can borrow mine if you're too cold."  
"Thank you," she sighed. "But I'm used to this. You keep it."

Ferrilyn nodded. He had pure Markaris tan skin and white hair, both grey-toned under the moonlight, and wore a thick cloak of the Markaris Empire's scarlet. Sienne's hair seemed ashen, her own green cloak nearly black in the night. The grass around them was already paling with frost, glittering as the horizon darkened and Antra's lights brightened. It was the only source of light on the flat landscape. Other than the occasional patch of woodland, the land around the Taren Empire's capital had few interesting features. Sienne stared over the expanse of grass and ice towards the city, then to the stars. This was why she had wanted to meet the Marshal out here to think, rather than under the relative warmth and bright lights of her Sanctorium. And her student.

Ferrilyn put an arm around Sienne as her shoulders began to shake, and carefully, she leaned against him. They both wore gloves in the cold, but as always, were careful not to let their skin touch. As a result, she felt only an ache in her side and the Marshal's warmth as he shifted. From what they had described to one another, in place of the pain she felt, he experienced a temporary nausea and disorientation when beside her.

Sienne spoke to divert herself from the weak, constant pain and from the tears shaking the lights of the city into a blur. She couldn't expect an answer. Only a distraction.  
"Why do we lie about Soletris?" she said.  
Ferrilyn was quiet for a moment. "It wasn't your fault," he said. "And you should be asking an Archivist, not me."  
"I'm the Taren's Archivist, and I shouldn't have to lie to this empire about Soletris, to... " She took a deep breath, feeling the cold air. "Why did I have to kill him for this god that doesn't even exist? I should have given him more time; he-"  
"-would have got out of your Sanctorium again at some point. Quiet." The pain in her side shifted slightly as she felt him move in the darkness, still with an arm around her, still keeping her warm, but looking almost reflexively for anyone in the darkness. "The other Archivists supported it," Sienne said, "he wouldn't listen to me, they knew I couldn't keep him shut away forever. But this hasn't happened in so, so long. They'll have to help me with cover-ups, explanations, I'll need a second student…" For a short while, there was silence as they simply kept each other warmer.

"You haven't told Layne yet," Ferrilyn said. "And you can find another student to study the archives with you." Sienne was quiet. "Listen to me. Sienne. Listen. This has been done before. It's been a long time, yes, but you've told me that you're not the first to do this, and you won't be the last. It was right. It's the death of one for four empires' stability. Think of the Metria region. Sienne. Imagine them bringing firearms across the rest of the Alliance. That's what would happen if he told people about this. There are no good reasons to take what Rosira believes and destroy it like that."  
The Archivist released her breath as a tiny mist.

"He was such a good student." She kept her eyes closed. "And then I told him about Soletris, and-"  
The Marshal tried to hush her again, but she raised her voice over his. "He spent his life training to be an Archivist, and I took it away from him and expected him to just move on." Her hands trailed through the grass, glinting under the moon and the endless bands of stars while the frost thickened. "And then the people I hired to find him, to bring him back to me in the Sanctorium after he ran. He told them, Ferrilyn. I had to send some of my Sentries to bring him back. They're innocent people, and they're- they'll be dead because of this."  
Ferrilyn pulled her closer, and she grit her teeth against the spike of pain.  
"I brought you something," he said.

"Ferrilyn, as an Archivist, it went against everything I was taught." Sienne did not look at him. "But as myself, as the person you know, when I told you about Soletris, can you tell me honestly that I did the right thing then?"  
"You made a good decision, Sienne. Tonight, and when you told me." His smile grew, and her frown deepened, ignoring the pain in her side as he moved. "I can tell you now beyond doubt that, while Soletris itself obviously didn't dictate the archives, the Artefacts detailed in the archives certainly do. Here." Ferrilyn reached into his bag, pulling out a roll of paper. Sienne couldn't repress a sigh of relief when he took his arm from her shoulders, the pain melting away and the cold returning, and she noticed him relax as his slight nausea faded. "You were right, Sienne."

The paper was sealed in a hard, transparent case, and she spread her hands, letting the Marshal drop it without touching her. "Hold it carefully," he said, pressing his thumb and forefinger against it. There was a quiet hiss as the lid unsealed, and Sienne reached in and pulled out the scroll. With slow, precise movements, she unravelled it against her knees. Under the moonlight, she could see the silvery paper was flaking, coated in small grey markings she could not read.  
"Harmony or Faith?" She stared at the paper, imagining it disintegrating into pale dust on her gloves in the open air. "Should - should you keep this in the case?"  
"It will be alright for a moment or two. Now, I'll need a little more time to study it; I've only had it since yesterday. I was going to schedule a visit to your Sanctorium before you called me last night. But I'm sure this is a Scroll of Harmony, rather than of Faith, possibly the fourth in the set," Ferrilyn said, "and your knowledge of the archives will be invaluable. The two of us will be able to translate this. You always knew there was something out there, didn't you? And now all the research we conducted has given us this. It's given us answers, Sienne."

Sienne felt her fingertips brush against millennia, before the tiny piece of the Aeron Galaxy known as Rosira became the Rosira Alliance. It never would have become the Alliance if these words had not been passed between Archivists to each of their four empires, believed to be the writings of Soletris by all but the Archivists themselves. But at least there was a tiny part of truth in what she taught. This much existed. She pulled her eyes away from the Artefact to Ferrilyn.  
"You and I are closer than any of the Archivists to knowing, Sienne," he said. "Why you teach Rosira that Soletris exists, why the first Archivists passed that on to the rest of Rosira's Archivists. To you. We can find our answers together."

Sienne placed the Scroll on the ground, leaned over and wrapped her arms around the Marshal. He chuckled, returning the gesture after a moment, and pain shot through one side of her face. Blue light flickered in her vision. Ferrilyn collapsed onto the grass. Sienne forced herself away from him, the frost crackling under her knees. She grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes closed to shut it out. Her world became the blue light on her face, filtered through the pink of her lids, and she gasped, eyes opening. The spot where she had brushed against the Marshal's face felt almost paralysed. For a moment she could not move for the shock and the searing on her cheek. Wisps of light swirled just beneath her eye. She saw Ferrilyn breathing deeply, repressing waves of nausea. The red light on part of his own face coloured the frosted grass around his head. Sienne braced herself with one hand on the ground and reached out for him, then gripped her cloak instead. She kept her breathing in time with Ferrilyn's, calming, distracting, and counted. Then she wrapped gloved hands around his arm as the pain faded and he appeared more stable, helping him to his knees. Streaks of light brushed part of his face, colouring his cloak deepest scarlet even as they began to fade away. She winced at the sight of it, but stayed where she was, hands curled into fists.

"Sienne," he said. "Sienne, it's alright. Relax. You're okay." His voice was suddenly too steady for Sienne to believe him. He was staring downwards. There was faint blue light in the cracks beneath her clenched fingers. Her eyes narrowed in frustration. The light flickered, then vanished.  
She didn't look up at him. "I'm sorry," she said.  
"It's difficult for me, too." The red darkness on his face faded entirely. "At least you didn't pass out this time." Ferrilyn smiled, relaxing, his voice less steady this time. He was alright. "And I'm not about to start wearing gloves every time I see you. Not unless it's this cold whenever I get the chance."

"What is it, Ferrilyn?" Sienne said, staring across the flat grasses before them. "What is this? You haven't heard about anyone else with this… this… yet… have you? After you found..."  
The Marshal laughed humourlessly. "I have not. Perhaps more Artifacts will tell us what it is." Sienne looked at him, this time getting a true laugh, then returned to staring past Antra's glow, across the expanse of Euna's landscape. "Just relax," Ferrilyn said. "I'm helping you in your research, and I'm already investigating locations of some other Artefacts. I'm sure we'll find something soon."

Sienne stared at the paper on the grass beside them, eyes darting across indecipherable grey lines. "You said this was the fourth Scroll." She did not want another discussion on their colours now, and neither would Ferrilyn. She picked up her tablet and tapped at its screen until it filled with words. Ferrilyn rolled the Scroll back into the case and set it on the grass between them. "This is the section of the archives concerning the fourth Scroll of Harmony," Sienne said. "It mostly focuses upon the nature of practising one's faith. Not fearing to question precisely why one holds one's belief, so one might achieve fuller spiritual understanding-"  
"Spoken like a true Archivist." Ferrilyn smiled as she glared at him. "Sienne, I will be working on translating this Scroll with the help of you, the archives' records and Rinas, so you and I can read everything on it that was originally written. No, I trust Rinas completely with this," he said as Sienne's frown deepened. "And as I said before, I'm certain this is the fourth Scroll in its set - the set most probably being the Scrolls of Harmony, rather than those of Faith - but I'll need a just a little more evidence first. That shouldn't take me too long at all. But as to what precisely it says… Sienne, you understand this will take a lot more work. But the archives will help sort fact from fiction. We can do it together. And once we're started on this, any other Artefacts I find will fall into place that much faster."

She nodded, strands of pale hair trembling around her face. "Ferrilyn. I should go back." She forced the words out. "My Sentries will be expecting me back in the Sanctorium before the middle of the night."  
"And Roxier will be wondering where I am," Ferrilyn said. "Give his best wishes to Layne, will you? We both miss him awfully, and once he is told of the loss of his fellow student- "  
"Yes. Layne talks about you and his father all the time. He's only been with me for a few months now, but he misses home. He's… he's a good student," she said. "And he will make a wonderful emperor one day."  
"I'm sure of it. Layne takes after his father."

Sienne looked at the Marshal. "Emperor Roxier has no idea what he's doing."  
"No, he doesn't. But he is also my friend," Ferrilyn snapped. "And I will not hear anyone speak of him in that way."  
"And your negotiations with Commander Rinas?"  
The Marshal's eyes narrowed. For a few seconds, both refused to drop their gaze. Then Ferrilyn growled and looked away, staring into the cold ground. "I don't know what I'm doing much more than he does. And I can talk to Roxier," he said to himself and to her. "He is simply overcautious, Sienne, and I will remind him that our negotiations with Rinas really are a productive endeavour."  
She sniffed and pulled herself up from the icy ground. Ferrilyn shook his head, his bright white hair luminous under the moon.

"Sienne," he said, standing as well so he could meet her eyes. "You'll going to have to think about finding a new student to study with Layne now. He can't be an emperor and an Archivist at the same time."  
"I know. I'm going to ask my third choice from when I was reviewing applications earlier this year. I'm contacting her family tomorrow to see if she still wants the position. She's only about Layne's age. Her name is Kaira Mercia. Her parents are a fairly influential couple in the Aspelin Empire, with strong connections to the Charede Empire's royal family."

Sienne watched the stars for a moment and drew a haze of blue light to twist around her. She noticed Ferrilyn take an involuntary step back as she lit up, the grass at her feet now glittering with as many tiny points of light as the sky, and used the mental clarity it always brought to steel herself. "I haven't told the other Archivists this yet." Her voice echoed slightly, and she let the light fade, watching Ferrilyn settle as she did so. "But I'm going to wait a long, long time before I tell Layne and Kaira the truth about Soletris' non-existence. Not months. Years. They should become used to their studies first. They're practically children. They deserve time to settle."  
"I can see why the other three are supporting your decision with your last student. You did make the right choice." She could see Ferrilyn watch the light as it vanished. "But will they understand you in this? All of their students are older than Layne. I assume he and Miss Mercia are the only ones who doesn't yet know."  
"I haven't even spoken to her family yet. It's undecided. But you are right," Sienne said, looking towards the city again, the warm gold lights miles away over fields of frost.

"I don't want to leave you when you're like this, Sienne," the Marshal sighed.  
"I'm fine," she said. "I'll be fine. I must go back now. Thank you for coming to meet me here. It means a lot that you'd come halfway across Rosira at such short notice. And…" She shook her head, staring at the Scroll's case as he put it into his bag. "You found an Artefact, Ferrilyn."  
He grinned. "It's just one of many I'll find, I'm sure," he said. "And we can meet again shortly, look over it properly. Goodnight, Sienne. I'll be seeing you soon."  
"Goodnight. And thank you for coming out here with me, Marshal."  
"Any time, Archivist," he smiled, clasping her hand in both his own. She ignored the brief stab of pain and sighed in exasperation, but smiled back at him, and pressed her palms together against the ever-sinking temperatures as she watched him go. Ferrilyn's dark cloak rippled in the night as he disappeared into the thin covering of trees. He had told her a ship and his own Sentries were waiting a short distance away.

The Archivist stood long minutes in the cold until green lights glittered through branches and a dark shape rose above the surface of Euna, higher and higher until darting away and becoming another star in the ripples of white above her.

Sienne kept her face upturned towards the black and white and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her body was draped in gently swirling, rippling light, the same bright blue that had healed her when she and Ferrilyn had touched. She felt whole, seeing it play up and down her cloak, twisting around her arms and between her fingers, moving and stretching around her like ripples across a body of water. With it came a sense of purpose. Purpose in the way she watched the stars, the way she watched the capital. She was the Taren Empire's Archivist. She was needed back in Antra to control Soletrism, however she chose to do so. And she needed to focus. She needed a new student, another successor. A replacement for her last student. Kaira Mercia. She would talk with her first thing tomorrow.

Sienne let the glow fade, looking at her breath momentarily light up as a thin blue mist before the last wisps of light vanished. In its place, the cold enveloped her. She rubbed a hand across her pale face, pulled her cloak a little closer to herself against the night, and started towards Antra and her Sanctorium.


	2. Chapter 1 - Skyline

ScoH – analysing sense of self  
ScoF – search for answers unnecessary (to what extent? See Archives of Artefacts Book 13 Part 2)  
ScoO – physical universe before self?  
-best to begin with Bks. 8, possibly 12-15

Chapter 1  
Skyline

The first star shivered behind thick glass. Layne had said its name was Talis.

Most of today had been spent sitting in one of two places: a chair beside Layne in Sienne's office, or the Sanctorium's roof. Kaira had expected Layne to come looking for her there at some point that afternoon, but after they had spoken to the Archivist, he had gone to his room and stayed there, as far as she was aware. It was good to have some time alone to consider what Sienne had told them about Soletris.

Now only two shelves in the wardrobe were not bare. The warmest were already nestled at the bottom of her travelling case; it had been months since she'd been on any planet warmer than Euna.

A low chime sounded from the bedroom door. Kaira pulled the top of her case down, sealed it and pushed it into the bottom of her wardrobe. She stayed kneeling on the carpet for a moment. The case had knocked stacks of unpacked clothes into one pile at the bottom. Kaira looked towards her student's cloak crumpled on the bed, back towards the door, then straightened, smoothed down her skirts and crossed the room.

"Good evening," Sienne said. Her hair was coiled behind her head and held in a thin golden ringlet, and she wore a cloak lined with the Taren Empire's blue. The outer layer trailed down her back in the same deep green as the cloak Kaira had left on her bed. "Can I speak with you again tonight?"  
"Yes, Sienne." Kaira stepped aside to let her in. "I'm not leaving."  
Sienne's smile grew, and she stepped forwards to hug Kaira tightly. "I'm proud of you," she said. "Thank you."

Sienne's cloak rustled against her dress as they crossed the room. One wall was entirely glass, with a long, cushioned bench at its base, and showed Kaira a panorama of the city. The landscape sparkled as more lights across Antra flashed on. The streets were far, far below them, but Kaira could only see the tops of the tallest buildings near the Sanctorium if she pressed her forehead up against the glass.  
"Did you hear the news this morning?" Sienne said. Kaira stared at her. "About the Metria region," she sighed.  
"Do they know what you told Layne and I earlier?"  
"About Soletris? No. No, we don't believe so. The other Archivists and I have sent people to Metria many times before to investigate that." Sienne pulled at her cloak so that part of it lay over her knees. Kaira waited in silence until she continued. "A few days ago, Emperor Roxier sent some of the Markaris Empire's Sentinels on a diplomatic visit to the outskirts of Metria. It was brought to public awareness this morning that the six he sent were attacked and killed by a group of around thirty. All the attackers held firearms."  
Kaira nodded, staring at the opposite wall. "And does Layne know?"  
"His father's picking him up from here in two days. The Emperor will be addressing his empire and the rest of Rosira, and he wants Layne to be with him."  
Kaira pressed her fingers into the cushioned seat as she followed Sienne's eyes to her student's cloak on the bed.

"Roxier was an Archivist's student once, too," Sienne said. The evening sun turned her cloak's blue lining a dark violet.  
"At least Layne will have someone else to talk about this with. Besides us."  
"Mm. I spoke with him this afternoon. He contacted his father earlier, and he seems much better for it." Sienne smiled faintly. "Now, besides your decision to stay, I wanted to discuss Metria with you." Kaira turned to face Sienne. "This is exactly what I was explaining to you this morning." One side of her vision was white walls tinted umber by the sun, the time shown above her bed a bright red in the corner of her eye. To her left was a haze of orange, her reflection shifting, glass and glitter from the sunset covering Antra just behind the window.

"I've discussed this with the other Archivists more than often enough. The potential for firearms to spread across... " Sienne rubbed a hand against her face. "We have to contain this to the outlying regions of the Rosira Alliance. If this happened across Rosira - if anyone other than the Archivists and their students knew about Soletris'... non-existence - people would use it as an excuse to completely ignore the archives' teachings on this. This is what we do as Archivists, Kaira. This is why you're here with me. You will tell Rosira what the archives say and why we should listen to them."  
Kaira was quiet for a moment. "You believe that lying about the fundamental part of Soletrism for the last few thousand years is the one thing stopping Rosira from forgetting basic morality?"  
Sienne watched her and said nothing.

"And if someone else found out? Then what would you say to them?"  
"What I already told you and Layne this morning. The truth," Sienne said, "and the ensuing risks to the Rosira Alliance if anyone else knew." She stood, her cloak trailing over the cushions. "I would have told them what I'm now explaining to you again. I know what this is like. I went through the same when the last Archivist had to tell me all of this. But I thought you said you had listened to me, Kaira."  
"I have listened." She looked from Sienne's eyes to the window. On any other planet she had visited, the city lights had wavered with the heat as it vanished into the late evening. It never happened on Euna; it was too cold. The lights of Antra held still.

Sienne looked down at her. "I need you, Kaira," she said. "I and the Rosira Alliance need you to be an Archivist after me, and you need to know about Soletris. You have to know at some point in your studies."  
"After I've been studying the archives here for nearly seven years? Why are you telling me now?"  
"Would you have stayed if I'd told you in your first year? The second?"  
Kaira looked at Sienne. "I'm not sure. How could I tell?"  
"Exactly, Kaira. But now you're old enough to understand that the archives are more than Soletris."  
"Soletris is what-"  
"Listen to me. This is what we want the truth, and so do I, and so do the other Archivists and their 's why you agreed to stay." Sienne hesitated. "I need your help with this, Kaira. Do you believe in what I just told you? Do you understand why we do this?" Kaira stood up to face her. "You can't be an Archivist if you don't believe in the fundamentals of the archives' teachings. That is what's important to Rosira."  
"I know, Archivist."

When Sienne had left, Kaira took two steps towards the wardrobe, stopped, and collapsed back onto the long seat. Dark blonde hair fell over her face, and she pushed it behind her shoulder. Kaira pressed her back against the cold window and kept her eyes fixated on the numbers above her bed until the minute changed. Then she walked out. The corridors glistened and reflected hazy, bright images of the small lights lining the passageways. They were dimming slightly as the evening fell, surrounding her in a blur of rich brown gloss. She reached a dark door and pressed a tiny button in its frame. A faint chime sounded on the other side. After a few seconds, the door slid away. Kaira refused to sit, but Layne managed to push a hot drink into her hands. They had been freezing.

"Honestly, I've just had one myself," he was saying as settled himself into a soft chair. "It's no problem."  
"You just happened to have an extra mug of this waiting to be warmed up?"  
"I was expecting you."  
Kaira nodded. "I'm still leaving."  
They were quiet for a few moments.  
"You've just been talking with Archivist Sienne again, haven't you?" Layne continued to smile at her. Kaira was still, feeling her shoulders slowly rise and fall, colder than usual without her student's cloak around them. Layne's was hanging in its usual spot on a wardrobe door, coloured Soletris' green. "Did you... did you hear what she had to say?"  
"I did listen to her!" Layne blinked, and she tightened her grip on the cup. She stepped back and sat down in a chair opposite his.  
"It's alright," Layne said as she lifted the cup. "What did she tell you?"  
"She…" Kaira tried her drink. "She kept asking if I was listening," she laughed weakly. "But she's not listening to me. She won't let me leave, Layne. She said so this morning, and I don't think she's not about to change her mind on the matter. I told her that I'll stay, but I can't. I'm not staying in the Sanctorium. I'm going in two days from now."

Layne pulled himself out of the cushions and took the cup from her hand, placing it on the floor. Then he sat down in the chair next to her and Kaira tried to make room, one arm of the chair pressing into her side. Layne hugged her tightly, and she rested her head on his shoulder. It was dark if she kept her eyes closed, and he was warm, so for a while, Kaira simply sat with him. Layne stayed with her on the chair for a while, then stood to made her another drink.

"I think the only time I've seen you cry is when you first came here," he said.  
The window was set into the wall opposite her, but Kaira stared at the steam from her new mug instead as the sunlight turned it scarlet. "I was missing my family."  
"I remember the first time you told me about them." Layne chuckled. "How much your sister was talking about Merla..."  
She couldn't resist smiling back. "She still doesn't talk about anything else. There's not even a set date for the wedding yet. Yadis keeps telling her to get on with it, I offer to help her plan, but she doesn't want to 'distract us' from whatever we're doing. I don't know what Yadis is doing at home, but he probably needs distracting." She tried to stretch without spilling her drink. "Layne, I'm going to try and leave at the same time you go away with your father. That's still scheduled for two days' time, isn't it? Sienne said just now."

He blinked. "Yeah. He wants to give another talk on the issues in the Metria region." Layne looked a lot like Emperor Roxier, with his thin face and grey eyes, along with the tan skin and white hair of a purely Markaris family. As he stared out through his window at the sky, Kaira took a deep breath and pulled two small squares from her pocket.  
"I'd like you to send these to my sister and brother for me when you get the chance. I've labelled them on the back for you. This one's for Audity, so you can just send it straight to the Chareda Empire's palace because she's still staying with Merla, and this is for Yadis. He's still at home, like I said, and I don't think he's got any trips planned right now. But if he does, our parents will pass it on to him." Layne stood, taking the squares in one hand and Kaira's now-empty cup with the other. "I'm just letting them know that I'm alright," she said, "that I know what I'm doing, where I'm going."

Layne set everything in the middle of his desk.  
"So," he said, reseating himself on the arm of the chair. "Is this is your official goodbye? We won't see much over the next couple of days. We'll be studying," he looked at the carpet, "and we'll both be getting ready to go."  
Kaira smiled. "I think now would be best."  
She helped Layne hold his balance on the edge of the chair as she hugged him. Kaira closed her eyes again and sat in the darkness for a while. Then Layne got up, found a thick coat and sweater in the wardrobe and pulled out some spares for her. They rode the lift up to the rooftop and sat in their usual place near the edge.

The domes seemed to cover Antra for miles when Kaira could see them from above. They topped the Sanctorium in the blue, scarlet, grey and gold of Rosira's four empires. Intricate patterns trailed over each dome, illuminated in Soletris' dark green.  
"You know you can't just go and tell this to Rosira outright," Layne murmured when she became too tired to listen to him name any more stars. "The Archivists haven't done that for a reason. But I get the feeling that's exactly what you're going to do."  
"That's not what I'm planning. Please don't look so worried." She sighed. "Layne, in a lot of ways, it's what I want to do, but it's not what I'm going to do. I'm finding a place to stay for a couple of nights, then I'll get a lift to the outskirts of the Charede Empire." A bank of clouds was approaching the city centre, the stars on the horizon disappearing and others fading in and out of view. Antra shone forty stories below them and sixty or more above. The skyline was a crush of partially-lit towers as windows turned bright or dark, people leaving or turning up the heating and the lights and settling down to a night's work. "From there, I'll find my sister in their palace because she's still staying with Merla, or I could just go home and find Yadis and my parents." Kaira watched the lights. "I'll have enough time to get lost in the city, which will make it harder for any Sentinels Sienne could send to bring me back, and then I can talk with her away from here." She stared down at her hands for a moment, then looked out at the domes around them. The freezing air held every part of her not leaning against Layne; he kept an arm around her as the cold seeped under her coat and into her gloves and thick boots. "Then I'll just have time to consider all this. I can come back to the Sanctorium very soon afterwards. I just think I need some time away."

Layne eventually persuaded her to go back into the warm as the temperature continued to fall, and said goodnight. She sat on the cushioned seat beneath the window and watched the lights of Antra and the stars - _Procya, Ais, Melin, Velas,_ she heard him saying _-_ for another hour before she pulled the bedcovers over her and slept.

oOoOo

Two nights later, Kaira watched Emperor Roxier's ship alight on the main lawns - she had met him briefly before on his occasional visits to his son or the Archivist - and said a quick goodbye to Layne as Sienne talked with the Emperor and his Marshal. She watched their ship drift above the grounds in the early evening, wrapped in her student's cloak with a heavy coat underneath. Kaira had been fifteen when she had arrived for the first time on the same lawns, replacing a student who had quit early into his studies. Layne had already been there for five months. Once, Kaira had thought she would spend the rest of her life in one of the Sanctoriums. She wondered which empire she would have become the Archivist of.

"It's alright," Sienne was telling her. They both watched the sky. Kaira couldn't tell the ship's light apart from the evening stars. She smiled and nodded and hugged Sienne back. "Come and see me some time tomorrow afternoon about the passage you were studying. The first part of the Scrolls of Faith?" Kaira nodded. "And you know you can come and see me any time at all if there's anything else."  
"Thank you, Archivist."

She watched the shining corridors recede behind her for the last time, shining with their tiny light fixtures. The door to her room slid open. Kaira opened a small screen, typed in a message and left a small note glowing on the desk. 'Sienne, you know me well enough to recognise why I need to take some time away. I've also told Layne that I'm leaving for a short while, and I've left messages to be sent to both of my siblings. I will not be away for long, and I will contact you soon. I only need a little time and space to myself to think, and I will be back shortly. I will miss you. Thank you for understanding me.'

Kaira took her case from the thirty-fourth floor to the first and strode across the wide entrance room. Although a few people were walking the halls, it was always so peaceful down here in the night compared to the day, with visitors exploring the building or being shown along various corridors to places of worship, research or lodgings in the building.  
"I'm allowed to visit my parents for a couple of days while Layne's away," she smiled to the evening guard.  
"Would you like someone to escort you there?" one asked. "It's getting late."  
"Thank you. But a friend of theirs is in the city; I'm meeting them at their hotel near the centre. It's hardly a few minutes away." The two Sentinels, dressed in Soletris' green and the Taren's blue, smiled back and wished her a safe journey.

Kaira kept her pace as she passed through the main door, huge and glass and set into a wall glowing with lights set just behind it. More lights covered the lawns, their borders and beds coated in the hundreds of plants Layne liked so much, and lit up the long, smooth walkway out of the grounds and into the centre of Antra.

The street stretched behind her into the dark. Towers rose at intervals along the street, lit windows dotted between wide, irregular black gaps tens of stories up and indistinguishable from the sky, but the paving was awash with light. Kaira was surrounded by shops with glowing fronts illuminating people in every colour as they walked. Beside her, the Sanctorium was lit up all over by hundreds of light fixtures, with its domes coloured for the Taren, Aspelin, Charede and Markaris Empires and crossed with its glowing green patterns. Kaira tightened her hold on the case's handle and looked further up. Clouds had reached the city centre. It was marginally less cold than normal outside, but the stars were all obscured.

She tugged her case closer behind her and started walking. A small screen was in the bag on her shoulder, almost clear of fingerprints. Not even Audity or Yadis knew how to contact her on this. She would contact them both at some point late tomorrow, when they would have received the recordings she had given Layne. It read that the hotel she would stay in tonight was fifty-two minutes' walk away, nineteen by train. With some luck, Sienne would not realise she was not in her room until tomorrow afternoon or evening. The nearest station was a blue dot on the screen. Far down the street were a few lights in the sky as a small train sped away from the stop.

The case rumbled quietly behind her as Kaira pulled it across the smooth paving, and the bulk of the Sanctorium began to fade behind her until only the top stories and domes were visible above other buildings. As she heaved her case onto the empty seat beside her and felt the jolt as the train moved away, she watched the domes until the train turned a corner above another wide street. All there was then were flashes of patterns in Soletris' green. The towers on this street were taller now, obscuring the Sanctorium more and more as Kaira was taken further from the centre. She could not see it at all from the window of her hotel room.


End file.
